Natarsha Walsh and Henry Larsen’s love story starts the way a great teen rom-com might: in a small town high school on a “friends to lovers” trajectory. Natarsha, now the brand manager at Bondi Beach-born label Venroy, met Henry, automation director at Crown Equipment, when they were 16-years-old, when he was the new kid in their coastal village of Milton. “As soon as we met, we became best friends,” she recalls to Vogue. “It wasn’t until our final year of high school, right before we graduated and planned a six-month gap year together, that we admitted to each how we really felt.”
Years later, Natarsha was planning Venroy’s spring/summer 2024 campaign shoot in Nice. Two weeks out, the couple decided to turn it into a holiday, Henry meeting her in Rome before they headed to the island of Ponza, one of Natarsha’s favourite places. “On set, the entire team was convinced Henry was going to propose,” Natarsha says. She was certain he wasn’t. “Two weeks felt like too little time to organise a ring.” In Ponza, they hired a boat to swim off the coastline around the island. “We stopped at one spot and there was no one else around,” recalls Natarsha. “Just as I was about to jump in, I turned around to find him on one knee,” holding a custom-made ring he had managed to turn around in two weeks. “I burst into tears immediately.”
From the moment she started planning the wedding, the bride had a specific vision in mind. “I wanted everything to feel classic and minimalist with personal touches,” she says. “Our aesthetic at home is quite pared back, so it made sense that our wedding would feel like a larger version of a dinner party we would host.” This meant silks, chrome, and white florals—roses, hydrangeas and tulips—en masse. “Naturally, I approached planning like I would a fashion shoot or event. I was quick to learn a wedding is a totally different beast which I was not prepared for!” The couple succeeded in planning the nuptials themselves, and brought on stylist Emma Micallef to ensure the vision came to life.
“Henry and I both have a deep love of nature, always heading back home to the South Coast or out of the city,” Natarsha says of the venue considerations. “The main thing we wanted was to be surrounded by nature, and to celebrate outdoors.” As soon as they drove into Braidwaid, where Mona Farm resides, Henry noticed the poplar trees. “They reminded him of the drive to his grandparents’ farm where he spent most of his childhood in country Victoria,” explains Natarsha. As they made their way down the driveway at Mona Farm, passing the European gardens, grazing horses and glittering lake, they knew they would be getting married there. “The grounds had a sense of calm, and the gardens were perfect for our vision,” the bride says. “It felt like we were a million miles away in our own oasis.”
Over the decade that Natarsha and Henry have been together, the bride-to-be always imagined herself wearing a simple slip dress to their wedding. Then in October 2024, Vivienne Westwood released a new bridal collection, and she came across The Victoria dress—a gown inspired by the house’s archival Cloud dress, a design first seen in the Vivienne Westwood Gold Label autumn/winter ’07/’08 collection and perhaps most notably, the wedding dress that Carrie Bradshaw wore in the 2008 Sex and the City film (and again in season 2 of And Just Like That…) An opulent silhouette with a delicately draped corset and defined dropped waist, the skirts’ voluminous, asymmetrical tiered skirt is crafted with Vivienne Westwood’s signature diamond pattern-cutting technique. “I immediately knew it was the one,” Natarsha says of the dress. Everything about it fit her vision, except the high-low hem, which she hoped to make full-length. During a trip to Los Angeles for work, and on a fateful turn of events, the bride ended up with an appointment at the Vivienne Westwood boutique.
“I explained my vision to the bridal assistant,” Natarsha recalls. “Given the intricacy of the pattern-making, lengthening the dress wasn’t an option, but she suggested I try it with a full -length skirt in a similar fabric. It was perfect—elegant, refined, with the right amount of drama. The assistant could see how in love I was, gave me her card, and told me to request extra fabric when ordering, which I could then take to a tailor to have added to the dress.” Only after working with the Bloom Australia team to order the dress did Natarsha later find out that adding extra fabric isn’t something the Vivienne Westwood team do very often. “I left the appointment feeling so grateful and excited!”
Back in Australia, the bride reached out to Sydney-based alterationist, who specialises in Vivienne Westwood designs, Tailored by Tamara. “At our fitting, we pinned the placement of the additional fabric and I knew immediately Tamara could execute exactly what I had in mind. Four fittings later, the dress was perfect! We also added a bustle to the extra panels so I could pin it up for our first dance and wear the gown as it was originally designed.”
For her second look, she had a custom slip dress made, heavily inspired by a vintage Ralph Lauren piece from 2002. “However, it was raining so heavily on the night that I made the last minute decision to switch to the dress I had originally set aside for my recovery day,” Natarsha says, a satin mini by Australian brand One of Others, paired with Magda Butrym flower-adorned heels. “It turned out to be the perfect choice,” the bride notes. “I still have the dress I had made, and I’m saving it for our one-year anniversary.”
The week before Natarsha and Henry’s summer wedding in January had perfect weather. The week of brought torrential rain and wild gusts of wind. Cocktail hour and dinner were moved into a marquee, and briefly, it looked like the garden ceremony would too. “Our coordinator could see the stress on my face,” says the bride. “The last thing I wanted was for our guests to sit in the wind and rain! Then he told me the wind had changed direction, and the spot where we had planned to hold the ceremony happened to be the only place on the entire property sheltered from it.” The sun broke through the clouds as the ceremony began, and it only lightly sprinkled until the festivities moved inside. “Who knows,” Natarsha admits now, looking back, “perhaps it was even better and more beautiful than our original plans.”
And the thing that tied together all the couple’s highlights from the day? They all had a great soundtrack, from their first dance that turned their wedding into one big giant dance party, to walking up and down the aisle to their favourite songs. “We walked back up the aisle as husband and wife to ‘Adore U’, and I remember the dip kiss we had only practiced once,” Natarsha reminisces. “Henry was certain he wanted to do it. We executed it surprisingly seamlessly and at that moment, I felt utterly euphoric. I had just married my best friend.”